ATLANTA, Ga. (Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Since 1950, women's deaths from lung cancer have increased 600 percent! This year more women will die from lung cancer than breast cancer! The primary cause of lung cancer is smoking. But that's not stopping many young women from starting -- and continuing to smoke. Why do they do it and how can they stop?

Lisa Kinne and Kristin Gauntt are both in their twenties, both are college educated, both work at the same restaurant and both smoke.

"That moment of time to get away, I enjoy that, having a cigarette," Gauntt told Ivanhoe.

"It's kind of like a relaxation technique," Kinne added.

Kinne and Gauntt are part of a dangerous trend. One in five women age 18 to 24 are smokers -- and they're starting young. A Centers for Disease Control survey found 23 percent of high school girls had smoked at least one cigarette in the past 30 days. Even in their 20's, many women believe smoking will help them lose weight, look sophisticated, relieve stress.

"They see women on TV smoking, they think it looks glamorous, think it makes them look older, look more grown up and so they want to do that," Sharon Etris, RN, Oncology Nurse at

Emory Winship Cancer Institute in Atlanta, Ga., told Ivanhoe.

Etris specializes in lung cancer -- she says often even smart women who know the damage smoking can do, don't think it will happen to them.

"They don't think they're going to be the one that's going to get lung cancer," Etris said.

More than 75 percent of women smokers say they'd like to quit. Though, like many of them, Gauntt's tried, she isn't ready to try again just yet. "I think its, I really enjoy the habit of it…" Gauntt said.

But Kinne says her body has already sent warnings that it's time. "I had a blood clot last year and smoking was definitely a factor in that," Kinne said. She says this time she's determined. Soon, she's hoping to say those two big words -- I quit!

If you would like more information, please contact:

Vincent Dollard
vincentdollard@emoryhealthcare.org